Telling Teddy
by HARRY.POTTER.QUICHE
Summary: Harry paced. He tried not to pace. But he was scared. Today, he was telling Teddy.


**Writing as the Beater 2 of the Tutshill Tornados. I had to write about someone of the next generation finding something about their parents/the last generation. (I realised afterwards that this is a bit dodgy on the prompt because of the ending, but too late unfortunately)**

 **Prompts –**

 **Rabbit**

 **Scared**

 **Fair**

…

Harry paced. He tried not to pace. Ginny always got annoyed by it. She'd say he was wearing a hole in the carpet or something like that. And yet, when he was nervous - no, scrap that, when he was scared – he always paced. Before an auror meeting with his boss, or when Hermione was mad at Ron and he was persuaded to try and talk her round; whatever it was, when he was scared, he paced.

Andromeda, he knew, had been scared, but he couldn't imagine her pacing. She was a Black at birth. He could much more easily imagine her sitting at her desk and eyeing her godson firmly while he chatted away randomly about his toys or what he was doing with cousin James, in the way only six year olds did, and no one would be able to guess she was just as terrified as the saviour of the wizarding world would be a week later.

…

" _And then James came up with this great idea, and we managed to tie his broomstick onto the cat's tail, and obviously it didn't_ —"

" _Teddy, love, that's wonderful, but I wanted to talk to you about something important."_

" _Oh. It was probably James' fault."_

" _No, you haven't done anything wrong. Hang on; did you say you tied a cat to a broomstick?"_

" _Yeah, it looked great! But it was really disappointing because the broom only flies two feet in the air. His old one flew higher."_

" _Teddy."_

" _But, you see, James let Albus fly on his old broom and he crashed into the cupboard and broke a drawer, and the broomstick, and sprained his ankle, and he got a_ papercut _as well. It went really badly."_

" _Ted_ —"

" _So when James convinced Uncle Harry to get a new one, without telling his mum, of course, Uncle Harry only got one that flies two feet in the air. James thinks it is Al's fault, but I rather think it was James', because_ — _"_

" _Teddy, love_ —"

" _Oh, yeah, sorry, you wanted to talk to me about something. Well, I promise I haven't done anything bad recently, except for not cleaning my room this month, but that's fine, because I don't need any pocket money this month. It also means my room will be extra messy next month, and I can get double pocket money and buy some fizzing whizzbees this time, because they haven't had any in for a while, and_ —"

" _Teddy!"_

" _What?"_

" _I wanted to talk to you. Now, I wanted to know whether or not you knew the origin of your toy wolf."_

" _Wolfy McWolf? What's an origin?"_

" _Yes, him. An origin is where he came from, why you have him."_

" _Well, I got him when I was a baby, didn't I?"_

" _Yes, but do you know why?"_

" _Because my papa bought him at_ _Pilliwinkle's?"_

" _Well, yes, but why did you get a wolf?"_

" _I like wolves._ Awoooo _!"_

...

Harry had gotten an impromptu floo call ten minutes later, yelling at him, because _how had it not occurred to them that no one had ever told Teddy about his father?_ And then, of course, because he was still a little scared of Andromeda (although if anyone asked he would say it was because he felt guilty) he had agreed to try and explain it to the overexcited six year old.

Teddy was smart. And slightly more mature than average. It was only fair that he should know. He had a right to know.

But that didn't mean Harry wasn't praying away his balls that someone else would tell him.

A week later, after several unsuccessful attempts, Harry was finally confident that he could do it. This didn't stop him from being scared, however.

"Harry?" Harry jumped a mile in the air. "James said you wanted to see me. He also said you should you should stop pacing because his mum is going to be angry at you and say you're wearing away the carpet or something like that. He said that he thought I had done something bad because you only paced once before wanting to talk to him and it was after he had broken a pot and said Al did it. Oops, I probably shouldn't have told you that was James. He's going to be annoyed at me now. Can you not tell him I told you?"

Harry stared a Teddy for a moment. Oh, Merlin, how had they messed up this badly? They had both forgotten that they'd have to do the talk at some point and now it was going to be stressful.

"Harry?"

Harry jumped again. "Oh, yes, Teddy, listen, I need to talk to you about something important."

"So you don't mind about the pot?"

"What pot?"

"The one James said Albus broke at Christmas a few years ago."

"Oh. No. I knew that was James."

"Really?"

"Yes. Albus was in his crib all morning. He could barely crawl then."

"Oh. Right. I didn't think of that."

"Yes, well,"

"Oh. Is this to do with what Granny wanted to talk to me about?"

"Yes, actually."

"I didn't actually bring Wolfy McWolf with me today, I have Bob instead."

Harry stared uncomfortably at the massive fluffy rabbit in Teddy's arms. "Yes, I can see that." How was he going to do this? "Teddy, what do you know about wolves?"

Teddy blinked up at him. "Are we talking about animals? James _was_ right then. He said because I was older I was going to be talked through the birds and the bees first, and that I had to tell him all 'bout it. I can keep a secret though if you want me to. I know I spilled James' secret about the pot, but you already knew that so it didn't count."

Harry stared at Teddy in horror. "Teddy, what are you talking about?"

"The pot James broke at Christmas a few years ago."

"No, the birds and the bees. Do you know what that is?"

"Birds and bees? Well, I got stung by a bee once. It hurt, but less than a gnome bite. I cried more though, because Granny was angry at me and said it my fault. And birds are just animals that fly. We went to a bird watching centre once as a school trip and my partner, Olivia, said it was boring, but I really liked it. They wouldn't let us have a turn holding the eagles though, which I thought was a bit unfair."

"No, Teddy, do you know what the birds and the bees _talk_ is?"

There was a long silence, and Teddy looked at him confusion. "Well, I thought you were meant to tell me."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "Do you know if James knows?"

"No, he was really annoyed about it. He said his friend Angela was promised by her parents that she would get it when she was a teenager, but that you haven't even mentioned it, and he wanted to know what it was."

Harry sunk into his chair. This was so much more stressful than he had thought it was going to be.

"Well, Teddy, you're going to have to tell him that you don't know either, because that wasn't what I wanted to tell you."

"Oh."

"Teddy, you know your father was a hero."

"Yes. I thought we were talking about animals, th—"

"And you know how much he loved you?"

"Yes, you said th—."

"Teddy, what do you know about werewolves?"

"Werewolves? Well, I know my papa was one. And I learnt about them from Mrs Friedan down the street after Auntie Ginny told me. Mrs Friedan said that werewolves were unlucky people who had a sort of sickness, and that anyone who said they were evil was a bastard. But I didn't know what bastards meant so I asked Granny and she said that a bastard was someone whose parents weren't married, and when I asked what that had to do with werewolves she got all confused. But I can't remember what she said then because afterwards I asked her about Christmas and we spent _ages_ talking about it, because she was all stressed because there were fourteen people coming, and she had burnt the chicken in the oven the year before and—" Teddy's eyes went wide. "The oven!" And then, without giving Harry any time to say anything, he ran from the room.

Harry sat there, staring at the spot his godson had just been sitting in.

What had just happened?

(He didn't have much time to think about it, because less than a minute later the fire alarm went off and he was a _little_ preoccupied.)


End file.
